Yea Pete. It's in there. Maybe a little more frequent just before and in the early part of Mr. Chimenti's piano solo. Check the refrain about minute 3:00. On the Archive recording it just sound like Bob to me. CheAiAiAing. bump. bump. CheAiAiAing...sorta thing. Borderline tolerable. At the venue and at volume, it was excrutiating to my ear. I just sampled OMSN & Cryptical. Just a few seconds of each. Check Crytical for the first 1:00. The noise I'm obscessing about is throughout.

The Archive recording are actually a rather cool way to digest Bob in a contemporary setting. If I weren't at work I could filter that noise down a bit & really think about it.

Man! I wanna jam with Jeff. I'm not qualified to ties his shoes, but that guy is so freakin' awesome it's unbelievable. PeaceMart

First off, I have always really enjoyed Weir's contributions to the GD's music. Completely unique approach to the guitar, and his style evolved over time to fill in the space between Phil's lead bass style (to put it as simply as I can) - his 1973-1974 tone with the Gibson ES-335 (and another Gibson semi-hollowbody) has a rich, warm sound hat fits in just beautifully with Garcia's bright Alligator and then Wolf and of course Phil ever-present bottom (and middle, and top) end. I also really dug the tones he pulled from the Cowboy from 1978 - > 1982. As much as I love Brent, he did cop a LOT of Bob's figures (for lack of a better term). And when he switched to the Modulus guitars with the tremolo in 1983 his playing became a bit more simplified - he really let Brent take over a huge space in the mix and relied more and more on two and three string chords and the tremolo to fill his space. That change in style almost seemed to be a bit of laziness on Weir's part as Brent was more than willing to fill those registers and Weir could kind of hang back a little, stick to his "angular" style but simplify things a bit.

Of course this is all my take on things and may be no more than what I hear. Take a listen to,let's say, the SBD's of the Winterland 10/17,18,20,21,22/1978 run and then check out the Greek 9/11,12,13/1981 AUD's and then some of the recent September 1982 releases from Charlie Miller - those fantastic AUD's that run between 9/11,12,14,15,20/1982. Weir is playing the Cowboy, has a really nice tone and plays some really interesting stuff that the SBD's from 10/1978 and the 1981/1982 AUD recordings reflect really well. The dig some 1984, 1985 and on after he really settled into the Modulus and whammy-bar style of playing, Some pretty significant changes to his approach to GD guitar playing during that time.

That said, I've always really enjoyed Weir's work in the GD. All around great guitar playing.

mkaufman wrote:The TRI videos are amazing. Bob is so clear. I actually think his current playing and tone is his best ever.

mk

yep, agreed. Most organic sounding as well. Love the various Gibson semi-hollowbodies. I was in Vegas and he switched off between the 59 ES335 and what I believe to be a newer ES339 due to the smaller body and what appears to be Grover tuners (standard issue on a 339). I could be wrong, but that is what it looked like to me.

He sounded fantastic and absolutely stood out in the mix. I loved every minute of that Vegas show. I think these guys just get better and better playing together.

I don't always agree with the idea of Bob being squeezed out by Jerry and Brent. Good musicians know where they need to be in the mix in terms of what they play. When you play with a keyboard / organ player, you adjust your contribution to the music accordingly. I would prefer to believe , and it is my opinion, that Dan Healy was a major contibutor to Bobby being lost in the music. At times in the early 80's I would walk out of a show and asking my friends, did you even hear Bobby tonight? It was very frustrating. Unlike the mid 70's. I also feel Bobby got lazy for awhile. His playing wasn't always inspiring and I also believe Healy deserved to be fired for a number of reasons as mentioned in a previous post. He was a prima dona. He was the main culprit in my humble opinion and I am glad he is gone. I love seeing Furthur because I can hear all those nuances that Bobby contributes that got lost at way too many Dead shows back in the day.

I believe Bobby back in the day, gave free reign to Brent and he was ok with taking a more lazier , laid back approach to the music. Whether that was by design or unintentional, only he and a few others know, but it really appears to be intentional in my opinion.

Today with Chimenti, you can hear Bobby through the mix just fine (for the most part). I think with Brent, Bobby just gave him more room and Brent filled in those gaps rather nicely. Brent being the quality musician that he was, I am sure would give Bobby whatever room he wanted, IF he wanted it. I just don't think Bobby wanted all that room and was perfectly happy being in the background.

I never saw Bobby have an off-night with his guitar playing in all the GD shows I saw from 1976 to 1994. I saw everyone else have off nights (maybe not Billy). I love his playing, he really understands the nature of comping.

playingdead wrote:When I met Bobby after a Furthur show at Radio City a couple years ago, my buddy told him that his guitar tone during Fire on the Mountain was so bright that it made the fillings in his teeth hurt. Bobby just grinned and said his hearing was pretty shot and that it didn't sound very bright to HIM.

High frequencies are the first thing you lose in your hearing. So it may not sound screechy in his ears.

Sometimes Weir would go for a tone that seemed counterintuitive. I remember Jerry and Bob discussing "Lazy River Road" and Garcia remarking that he wished the band wouldn't play it quite so "politely." Weir commented that his guitar tone on it couldn't be any ruder, and Garcia laughed and said that was true. That was the abrasive, screechy slide tone, as I recall.